The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

Located in South Carolina just a half-hour’s from its capital Columbia, Congaree National Park preserves the largest remaining old-growth bottomland forest in North America.

The easy 2.4 mile boardwalk loop trail is an obvious choice for an introduction to the park, offering diverse perspectives, and natural environments. It begins on the bluff where the visitor center is built. The first section is elevated as much as 6 feet above the forest floor, while the second section rests on the forest floor. The benches along the way provided a perfect place where I paused to enjoy the tranquility of the primeval forest.

Looking overhead, I noticed the height of the canopy. Because of the periodic flooding and deep fertility of the alluvial soils, the floodplain is home to bald cypress, tupelo and other trees growing to unusually large size. I learned from the interpretative signs that this was one of the world’s tallest temperate forest canopies, averaging over 100 feet high, and including two dozen champion trees.

As on my first visit, the place was named “Congaree Swamp National Monument”, so I was surprised to see the floodplain quite dry. One spot where I found water in abundance was Weston Lake, a abandoned channel of the Congaree River. There, I was able to photograph trees growing out of the water, the natural sight that I associate the most with the American South. I stepped out of the boardwalk to find positions that maximized the amount of reflections of the trees into the dark waters, while minimizing the brights spots caused by the sky.

Read the interview (PDF) that appeared in The State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper, on the occasion of my visit to the redesignated National Park.

More images of Congaree National Park
More images of Weston Lake

Mount Rainier dominates the surrounding landscape like no other mountain in America. The ice-capped volcano is visible from more than 100 miles away. However, the mountain is so big that it creates its own weather, often hiding in the clouds when everywhere else is clear. During my last trip to Mount Rainier National Park, I saw the mountain for only a few hours.

This let me concentrate on closer subjects which are easy to overlook, as the mountain is so prominent. Although the rain forests in the park are not as impressive as those on the Olympic Peninsula, they are nevertheless very lush.

I found Comet Falls to be one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the Park. While it is only 1.9 miles to the falls from the trailhead (ten miles from the Nisqually Entrance), the elevation gain is almost 1500 feet. I found the trail to be very pleasant, as it follows the cascading stream, in and out of a beautiful forest. This was a perfect hike for a rainy day. At 300 feet tall, Comet Falls is quite impressive, but what makes it stand out are its three tiers. I first took a general view from a viewpoint overlooking the falls. Then, I moved lower in order to align the three tiers more tightly. I eventually scrambled above the lower tier to get closer to the water flowing from the middle tier. Although that lower tier is no longer visible, I feel that the flowing water and stronger perspective added dynamism to the image. What do you think ?

More images of the trail to Comet Falls

Virgin Islands National Park protects a significant part of the Caribbean island of St John, the most relaxed, preserved, and affluent of the US Virgin Islands.

Since there are no airports on St John, to travel to this lush tropical paradise, I flew into St Thomas, then took a ferry to St John. There, after renting a car, I was surprised to see that on St John, you drive on the left side of the road, like in Japan, UK, Australia, and some other British Commonwealth countries, but unlike on those countries, the car is built for driving on the right, with the driver seat is on the left ! Supposedly the reason for that is to let the driver see the edge of the road better, as many of them in the island are quite narrow and bordered by steep cliffs. The resulting confusion (and night blindness as lights are angled at you) made driving alone quite an adventure. I was glad that the speed limit was 20mph, quite fitting for such a relaxed place.

For my first stop, I headed to Trunk Bay. I had to find out why the beach is consistently rated as one of the top ten beaches in the world, even named at one point by National Geographic as the beautiful beach in the world.

With such a reputation, the beach was extremely popular as expected. It included excellent amenities such as showers, restrooms, snack bar and gift shop, lifeguards, shaded picnic areas, which I understand count quite a bit in the a “best beach” rating by travel magazines. The white sand, turquoise clear water, steep surrounding forested slopes with coconut palms, and small offshore islets made it indeed “picture perfect”, except that the beach is quite crowded and too straight in its middle.

However, I found images at both ends. At the east end, after scrambling on rocks, I spotted some cactus for foregrounds. At the west end, because of the walking distance, I found fewer people and a small curving cove with some rocks. Photographing towards the main section of the beach to emphasize its length, the beachgoers were quite small in the photographs.

To cool down, I got into the water to check out the unique underwater snorkeling trail. The trail consists of a series of underwater signs providing environmental information and identifying some of the flora and fauna of the coral reef. After relaxing a bit, I had to get back to work. I went back in the water with my Nikonos underwater camera, and tried to capture the schools of tropical fish and the coral. Maybe because of the popularity of the area, the reef environment was not exceptional, but yet it was a perfect way to use the high noon sun. While landscape images often benefit from the low angle of the sun, underwater images need the sun rays to penetrate under the surface, which does not happen when the sun is low.

In the late afternoon, people began to leave the beach. I drove back to an overlook situated West of the beach. The higher perspective made it possible to see clearly the whole bay, beach, and islets. As the shadows on this north-facing beach were distracting, I waited for the light to become more even, after the sun had set. The beach was now empty. After making a few exposures, I lingered there to enjoy the quietness of the moment, planning to return there at sunrise to have the place for myself again.

View more images of Virgin Islands National Park
View more images of Trunk Bay

My second goal in visiting North Cascades National Park was to photograph some fall foliage there, especially since I had photographed fall foliage in each corner of the US, except in the North West.

The first source of fall foliage color I found on that trip was provided by maple trees, in particular vine maples that can turn a bright orange not often seen on the West Coast (and California in particular). I found a few pockets of those trees along the Cascade River Road. The rain was falling all day. This made it a bit difficult to work, but it provided a perfectly soft light. The wetness of the leaves enhanced the colors, once a polarizing filter was used to reduce the glare. For fall foliage forest photography, I’ll take rain over sunny weather any day. I looked for mossy boulders to include in the compositions. Their electric-green color complemented well the orange-red of the leaves.

At those northern latitudes, there is a more impressive source of fall foliage color. Berry plants blanket the sub-alpine elevations, and can turn whole mountain slopes crimson when the conditions are right. Normally, late September would be have been a good time to witness this event in the North Cascades, but it appears that the fall colors were late this year. Instead of looking for large autumn landscapes, I sought intimate scenes in the forest. After covering a lot of terrain, on the fifth, and last day of my visit, I eventually ran on a beautiful patch in the forest with a variety of reds and yellows. The foggy weather was just perfect for that scene, and the dark spruce trees added to the color contrast.

More images of North Cascades National Park Fall Colors

The saguaro cactus, with its multiple arms, is an icon of the American West. Although Western Films place them all over the place, they actually grow natively only in the Sonoran Desert, whose US portion is all included in southern Arizona. Around Tucson, the higher rate of precipitation causes the saguaro to grow twice as fast as saguaros in drier areas. This is where Saguaro National Park is located, making it the National Park closest to a major city.

I had come to the Park earlier on a previous visit, enjoying moderate temperatures, and a desert floor carpeted with annual flowers. On that May visit my main goal was to photograph the saguaro blooms, which occur in May and June.

In my explorations of the flats, I had found it difficult to photograph the delicate flowers, as they are clustered near the ends of branches of cactus that grow to sizes between 15 feet and 50 feet. I thought that a hillside would give the most opportunities, as I could be level or look down to some of the saguaros.

I went back to the Hugh Norris trail, the longest in the Park. The traihead is located on the Bajada Loop Drive, 3.5 miles north of the Red Hills Visitor Center in the Tucson Mountain District (West Unit) of Saguaro National Park. Unlike the East Unit, the West Unit is open 24 hours a day.

The first part of the trail climbs steadily up a canyon, whose sides are lined up with some of the most impressive saguaro forests in the park. Thousands of giant saguaros spread across the bajada, a Spanish term indicating the transition zone between the mountain and the valley. The steep location offered more varied compositions and a clearer views of the spread of the saguaros than the flats below. On a previous visit, I had found great light there in the late afternoon, with slopes nicely illuminated by the low sun.

The saguaro flowers last only half a day, opening at night, to close by next midday, never to open again. Because of that, and also in order to avoid the mid-day heat, this time I started to hike early in the morning. I was glad I took plenty of water, as it was quite hot in spite of the overcast sky.

As the drainage narrowed, the trail steepened and became a series of switchbacks leading to the top of the ridge. After hiking for a steep mile (which took me about 45 minutes) the trail reached a saddle. I followed a side path from which I found some of the nicest clusters of saguaro cactus, high above the visitor center, which could be seen in the distance. Almost each of the stems were completely encircled by creamy-white, 3-inch-wide flowers with yellow centers flowers.

I continued on the trail towards the top of Wasson Peak, 4 miles further. While in the canyon the views were only towards the west, they now opened up in other directions. The trail was meandering from one side of the ridge to the other and occasionally going along the top, with views changing from one side to the other. However, as the clouds got darker, I turned around before reaching the top, wary of being caught in an afternoon thunderstorm high on an exposed ridge. I will have to come back another time.

See more images of Saguaro National Park
See more images from the Hugh Norris Trail

It’s been a few months since I posted about new images in this blog. Although there are a lot of Yosemite and New York images I’d yet to comment on, in an effort to catch up, I am fast-forwarding to the most recent National Parks trip of this fall.

The first objective of my visit to North Cascades National Park was to seek more expansive views. I remembered from my previous visit a vast wilderness of rugged mountains, but on that trip I didn’t stand on a mountain top at sunrise or sunset. The mid-day light from Sahale Peak wasn’t too interesting. That what happens if your partners are normal people (as opposed to photographers :-)).

Based on photographer Jon Cornforth suggestion for Sibley Creek, I hiked the Hidden Lake trail. After about 3000 feet of elevation gain, I left my sleeping and cooking gear at a pass between the two Hidden Lake Peaks, and proceeded with the camera gear in the dense fog towards the higher of the two peaks. The lake below was often obscured. I was hoping that the fog would clear later, and it did, revealing spectacular views, but only after the sun had set.

After a rewarding session of dusk and night photography, greatly aided by the full moon, I scrambled by night to the retired Hidden Lake Peak lookout, situated on the other peak. I found the gear that I had left at the pass coated with a layer of frost in just a few hours. The air in the North Cascades is definitively more moist than in the Sierras. The lookout turned out to be of the nicest places I’ve stayed in the mountains, with stunning 360 degrees views, and a cozy interior well maintained by volunteers. I was glad I didn’t have to bivy outside.

The morning was clear, but views towards North Cascades National Park, on the edge of which the lookout is situated, were backlit. Every rock was coated with a layer of hoar frost. Because they were so slippery, I didn’t depart the lookout until mid-morning after the sun had melted some of that frost. By that time, clouds had already built up. I explored again on the ridges around Hidden Lake. One hour before sunset, it was clear that the summits would stay again engulfed in the clouds. I began to descend in order to get under the clouds. The sun emerged for a new minutes. I paused to make a few photographs, then quickly resumed scrambling down. Since this evening there would be no moonlight, I made sure to reach the trail before it was totally dark. Making few stops, I reached the trailhead at 10pm. It started raining after midnight.

More views around Hidden Lake: Hidden Lake, Mountains

The Great Sand Dunes protected by the National Park of the same name have the distinction of being the tallest dunes in North America, raising to heights of 750 feet.

Climbing the dunes proved quite an exercise. I was making one step backwards for every two steps forward on the deep sand. It took me one hour of hiking, from the time I stepped on the first dunes, to reach the top of the tallest dune. I was glad this was still May, when the temperatures were pleasant, and the mosquitoes hadn’t arrived yet, as I’ve read that the surface temperature of the sand can reach 140 degrees in the summer.

While I enjoyed the 360 degrees view, I didn’t think that it gave a good sense of the size of the dunes. When you are standing on the top of a mountain, you don’t see the mountain itself, right ? I remembered the first glimpse of the dunes I got upon entering the park. Because of the high sun, the dunes lacked relief then, but by late afternoon, the light should be just right.

I hiked down quickly, and crossed Medano Creek to get back to my car. I drove the access road a couple of miles past the visitor center and then past the park headquarters to maybe a mile before the private lodge, and then set up not too far from the road. Sometimes, the view you are looking for is the easiest to get to !

After a few tight shots with my 35mm camera and the 100-400mm, I reached for my large format camera and the longest lens that I own, a 720mm. Although this sounds impressive, on the 5×7 camera this is equivalent to a very modest 160mm on 35mm. Because of the extension and the relatively long exposure time of about 1/2 a second, I also needed to use two tripods to support the camera adequately and prevent vibrations that would have ruined the sharpness of the image.

The lens was not long enough to frame tightly the dunes and Sangre de Cristo Mountains, but I knew that the image would crop perfectly to a panoramic 6×17. I liked anyways the greater context it provided to the picture. The flats, accentuated by the grazing light, begin here and extend towards the East for most of the continent’s interior. Framing tightly often results in a more striking image, as no “uninteresting” element distracts from the main subject, yet the image with the broader context often rewards a more sustained viewing.

View all images of Great Sand Dunes National Park

This year, two different retail calendars feature exclusively my images. I have received some copies from the publisher that I an offering for sale. Images below are to exact relative scale.

The first one, similar to last year’s National Park Calendar, is almost an exhibit piece, at 23×16″. If you are interested, you should place an order as soon as possible, as it is almost sold out, and I do not anticipate receiving more copies.

The second one is a more standard (practical ?) 12×12″ size with a full page grid below each image for notes. All the images are from Yosemite National Park. I find the choice of images slightly odd, but it is a precursor of a more notable product by the same publisher, Rizzoli Universe, that I’ll announce in time next year.

See the images inside the calendars.

The Channel Islands of California are situated off the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles coast. Five of those islands form Channel Islands National Park.

Inspiration point, on East Anacapa Island, where I am standing, offers possibly the most spectacular view on the entire US West Coast. Earlier in the day, a misty marine layer (a frequent ocurence) had obscured the views I was hoping to capture at sunrise. But now the cool mist has evaporated, revealing beyond a ridge of East Anacapa a striking chain of three islands, Middle Anacapa, West Anacapa and Santa Cruz Island. Standing 250 feet above the narrow strait separating East and Middle Anacapa, I absorbed the dynamic spectacle of pelicans, gulls, and guillemots soaring below me, above a backdrop of deep blue waters and crashing waves.

Stepping gingerly near the edge of the sea cliff, I looked for a position where I would be able to include a set of Coreopsis flowers as a background to the dramatic view. Inspiration Point is spectacular at any time of the day and year, however, like most of the California hills, the islands are at their greenest at the end of the winter, before returning to brown by the end of April. The strange tree sun-flower, or Coreopsis, blossoms with bright yellow bouquets for a short period of time from the end of March to Mid-April. Although they nest in even larger numbers later in the spring, when every inch of the island seems inhabited by them, in April there were already an impressive number of Western Gulls on the island plateau, each of them sitting on a shallow nest with eggs.

Of all the Channel Islands, East Anacapa Island is the closest to the mainland, only 12 miles – a short hour crossing – from Oxnard, with boats from the concessionaire running all year. Yet the islands are at a same time a world apart. Isolation over thousands of years has created unique animals and plants found nowhere else on Earth, like the Coreopsis.

Although I live in California, I visited 41 National Parks all over the country before my first visit to Channel Islands. Despite being so close to the heavily populated mainland, the islands are little known. They see only light visitation and have preserved a wild character. Since East Anacapa Island is so small, only 3/4 mile long, all of its trails can easily be hiked in a couple of hours, so almost all visits are day trips. I shared the small campground where I had been staying overnight with only two other tents. As the concessionaire had a weight limit of 45 pounds for each bag that can be transported on the boat, I just packed my photography gear and camping gear in two bags, that I carried on two hikes over the 1/2 mile from the landing cove. Not being used to it, the sound of the lighthouse fog horn prevented me from getting a good night of sleep, but being able to stand at Inspiration Point at sunset, and then early in the morning made it well worth it.

See more images from Inspiration Point
See more images from Channel Islands National Park

Treasured Lands, the exhibition of my 58 images of the National Parks at the National Heritage Museum was initially scheduled to close this week.

I am pleased to announce that due to its success, the Museum has decided to extend the exhibition until Spring 2011.

Treasured Lands is the main feature of the summer issue of the Museum Newsletter (PDF) which reproduces a selection of images and accompanying commentaries from some of the lesser known parks.

If you are curious about how the exhibition looks, but cannot make it to Lexington, MA, have a look at newly posted installation images for Treasured Lands. I have also posted installation images from assorted exhibits of the past two years.